Secrets of a D-List Supervillain (10 page)

“I’m beginning to miss the days when you were my nemesis,” I replied. “Things seemed simpler back then.”

“Ah, the good old days... was your getaway driver really a blow up sex doll, or am I thinking of someone else?”

“Yeah, that was me. I had trust issues, back in the day. Not too long ago I also had a suit. Now, I’m looking forward to a sonic upgrade to my helmet.”

“Well, you were pretty good with your floater and roller,” Bugler offered. “If you can’t get the materials to build a new suit, why not build more drones? You don’t need synthmuscle for them. I was impressed by your floater.”

“Cal Stringel—The DroneMaster? Nah, how about TechnoDrone? Has a decent ring to it. Naturally, I’d have to figure out how to work a name with Cal in it, for old time’s sake. Meh, maybe I could make it work. Wait a sec! Does that mean you really didn’t like Roller?”

“Oh, that one was a brute to be sure, but the hover drone, now that was a piece of art and precision engineering. Your Roller was good enough in a scrap, but remember when you used Floater to track down E.M. Pulsive? Once you knew where he was, you called in Zeus and took him into custody without a fight. Sheer strength alone doesn’t always win the day.”

“Damn, Bugler! Are you sure there’s nothing in these sodas? You’re making too much sense.”

We spent the rest of the day going over potential drone designs. I especially liked the one that took Roller and made three times bigger, adding a control chair inside of it for me to command my platoon of drones.

It wasn’t going to compare to having a real suit, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to fly, but it would definitely increase my prospects of living until I could build a replacement suit.

• • •

“C’mon!” I muttered in frustration. The little caged gecko wasn’t going over to the twig like I wanted it to. Instead, it sat there, mocking me and basking in the light of the warming lamp. I’d been losing this particular exercise for the better part of eight days, with nothing to show for it.

This was my feeble attempt to cast one of the first spells I’d managed to translate from the collection of plates that I loosely termed Rex’s spell books. There were sixty-three of those, but some covered more than one of the plates. The rest of them consisted of his long winded biography and manifesto—at least I was pretty sure that’s what it was.

I didn’t find the “pull an asteroid out of orbit and smash it into the Earth” spell, which meant he was either a braggart with a keen sense of astronomy, or perhaps he didn’t want to leave something that destructive lying around for any potential enemies. It was difficult to say. Me? I was having enough trouble convincing a tiny lizard to go check out a twig.

Asserting your dominance over the lesser species is a necessary skill. Superiority opens the pathways to much greater manipulation.

“It sounds less like a magical system and more like installing a rootkit in a network,” I muttered and stared at the uncooperative animal. Reaching into the leather sack, I pull out the petrified carcass of a bat. This thing cost me four large from a bokor that Swamplord considered mostly trustworthy—or at least the voodoo priestess was too afraid of Hooch to screw over one of his friends.

As augments go, this was supposed to produce a threefold improvement over whatever innate magic I had in me. In other words, three times almost nothing might equal something.

I attempted the incantation again. Wait is it moving? No. It just reacted to the sound of my voice.

Then again, maybe it doesn’t’ mean crap.

“What am I doing?” I shouted in defeat. Futility was an old familiar friend I’d grappled with on many occasions. This time it looked as if it had the better of me. I looked at the rough drawings of the drones I’d put together with Bo. Instead of wasting my time with this I should be working on my squad of drones—the little tracked guy with the forty millimeter grenade launcher and eighteen round capacity, would pack a decent punch and wouldn’t set me back an arm and a leg. I had a spare grenade launcher back with Bobby in Alabama and could use the targeting system from a Type A robot. There would still have enough space to mount a forward facing shield generator.

Yeah, I guess I should be doing that instead. My awesome magical talents don’t seem to be getting me anywhere.

Glancing over at the statue of Andydroid, I tried to tell myself that if I started the whole drone project, I’d never come back to this. Lying to myself was easy. Hell! I could be a prodigy when it came to that.

Frustrated, I walked over to Andy and put my hand on his shoulder.

“If I give up now, I’m pretty much writing you off, pal. You know how stupid I can be; despite not having any real magical abilities, I wouldn’t let that stop me! But maybe it’s time I face the facts—I’m just not cut out for this. I’ve taken pictures of each plate and added my translation to them and put it into a database. Maybe down the road I can hire someone with more magic to try and tackle this.”

The expression on Andy’s face didn’t change and I tried to determine what he would say and knew, deep down, that he wouldn’t be angry with me, just slightly disappointed. Even turned to stone, Andydroid was probably ten times the hero that I could ever be.

“Sorry, Andy. Bo was telling me the other day that strength alone can’t solve everything, but you have to have something to start with.”

Like the idiot I was, I looked for reassurance from Andydroid. Finding none, I wanted to be angry. He was the last witness to the one great thing I did in my life. Even if Stacy got her memories back at that very moment, I doubted that we’d ever be the same again.

“This sucks giant donkey balls,” I told the statue. “But I can’t help you. That sonnuvabitch had more magic in his little toe than I’ll ever have.”

When the words came out of my mouth, it was like the light had been shined in my eyes after weeks of blundering around in the dark. I looked at Andy, and said, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking? I might not have his little toe, but I do have one of his clawed fingers!” I stared down at the shriveled up bat I’d still been holding and chucked it on the workbench. Digging through the items in the small dorm room fridge next to my bench, it took me a solid five minutes to find where I’d put that thing. José had laughed when I took it, and joked about making it into a necklace or something to commemorate my victory, and to be honest I’d forgotten I’d even had it.

In an ironic twist, the engineer pushed aside the plans for a group of drones. They became the back burner project as new life was breathed into this extremely dodgy venture.

Now, all I had to do was figure out how to turn Rex’s claw into my own little magic totem. Addressing the digit, I said, “Let’s go see what Mr. Google says I should do with you.”

• • •

“Yes,” the woman said, fondling my finger, well technically Rex’s claw. “This has some serious potential. I can feel the power that can be tapped with this.”

Was it my imagination or did the voodoo lady just lick her lips.

Her name was Patrice and she’d originally set out to be a pharmacist. Along the way, she’d discovered a similar, but vastly different, calling. She’d been one of the few Voodoo types who’d made a determined effort to break the spell on Andy. I’d been skeptical of the blonde haired woman, but Hooch said she was legit and that was enough for me. Even so, she looked the part of a PTA mother and not a person who deals in questionable magic.

The outside of her house looked like almost any misbegotten structure you’d find in the backwoods of bayou country. Inside, it looked completely modern and like something out of Better Homes and Gardens.

It was also my first time standing in the room with an, “I shit you not”, zombie. I’d seen one or two in the occasional traveling carnival freakshow, and figured out that on most of those occasions they were just actors in makeup.

This one, however, was no actor; right down to the leathery, desiccated flesh, and the sunken eyes that didn’t blink. Doesn’t smell nearly as bad as I thought it would.

Patrice noted my curiosity and chuckled in amusement. “My boyfriend in college. He swore he’d love me forever, and then broke my heart. In return, I did something else to his. Does that bother you, Guardian?”

“Not nearly as much as it bothered him,” I replied, and shrugged my shoulders. “What exactly do you use him for?”

“Round the clock housekeeping service mostly. He also helps with the vermin problem. You didn’t answer my question.”

“Oh, that?” I said, looking indifferent. “I’m still trying to adjust to being on this side of the fence, Ma’am. The ‘don’t kill unless absolutely necessary’ rule is still a work in progress for me, so I can sympathize. Back to business, there’s no way to get the rest of Rex’s body back from where my team leader donated him. Instead, I’ve got a dead American crocodile, fresh from southern Florida instead.”

“A pity,” she commented. “The substitution will no doubt dampen the power of the augment.”

“Yeah, but without any other dinosaurs really available for this, I had to go with a second cousin or what have you.” I mentally added the one count of poaching to the things I’d need to be covered in my pardon, assuming I ever get it. “I’m still new to all this occult stuff, but I’m well versed in the manufacturing of powerful devices. So, after trade in credit for the petrified bat, how much is this going to run me?”

“Something with this much potential needs to be done right. The bat, and throw in another seventy-five hundred dollars.”

I let out a low whistle. This was getting more expensive by the minute, but it was still not out of the realm of what was financially possible for me.

“However, when the augment is completed, I can try to free your robot friend again. If I can do that, you won’t need this anymore, and we’ll call it a fair swap.”

I sense much greed in this one
.

“Maybe. I do have some other things on my list to try with it, so we will have to see. For now, I will put together the money.”

“Very well, Mr. Stringel,” she said. “It will be ready in two weeks.”

Hooch was waiting for me on the boat at the dock. Instead of a motor, he used four gators as locomotion. I wouldn’t have had to go to Florida if he hadn’t objected to me offing one of his subjects. People get so sensitive about things like that.

“How’d it go?”

“She said it would be ready in two weeks,” I replied as we shoved off at a leisurely pace. I waited a couple of minutes before saying, “Patrice seemed pretty enthusiastic about how powerful of an augment she could make from Rex’s claw. How likely is she to double-cross me?”

Swamp Lord reaches over the side and swirls some of the water before turning back to me. “How much is she charging?”

“The bat plus another seven and a half. She offered to try and fix Andydroid again with it and implied that she wanted the claw if she did.”

“Well, shit,” he said. “I guess I’d better come back with you to pick it up. If she’s offering to do something at cost, I don’t think she’s planning on parting with it. Better come ready for a fight.”

“Yeah, I didn’t like the gleam in her eye. Well there’s a first, a woman who won’t give me the finger!”

He laughed while letting me know what his part in all of this was going to cost me – more pulse pistols. It was cool; I had things to do in my workshop anyway.

• • •

“Thanks for calling me. I really appreciate it,” I yelled over the sound of my force blaster discharging. The nearest group of zombified nutria exploded into a gooey mess. “I’m having Rodentia flashbacks.”

“After our little talk, I decided to keep an eye on her. Yeah, I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this,” the semi-vaporous man next to me said, as a tree limb scooped me up out of the way of the horde of rodents. “You should have brought the rest of your team.”

Patrice really does have a vermin problem! She also seems to have done something about it.
“And have them blame me for this, I don’t think so!”

Imagining the shrill voice of She-Dozer blaming me for unleashing a zombie outbreak, I figured this was best left on the sly, unless I die, in which case, I’d probably be regretting it for the rest of my shambling existence.

The animated tree cut a swath through the army of dead animals.

Patrice’s cackling laughter rang out. “You realize that with this, I can even challenge you, Mighty Swamp Lord.” A second tree uprooted itself, but this one wasn’t under Hooch’s control. “Let us see if you’re really the force you claim to be.”

“This is still my swamp, Patty!”

“But, unlike you, fool, I can leave and still be just as powerful!”

While they exchanged pleasantries, I was trying to avoid a terminal case of splinters. The newly installed sonics in my helmet were pretty useless against zombies and, from this distance, only mildly annoying to the voodoo priestess.

My force blasters, on the other hand, could still affect things. One of my two beams went wide right and the other plowed into the ground a few feet in front of her, sending mud flying everywhere. “This wasn’t part of the deal, Patrice!”

Yet, people always look at me funny when I say I have trust issues.

She scampered back behind some cover, which was a pleasant change. I’d been half expecting her to conjure some kind of shield like Rex did and mock me. So, I actually took a bit of reassurance in the fact that the traitor didn’t want be shot at.